It's not easy to understand what all this Windows SideShow business is about. Do you really need a small screen slapped on the outside of a laptop or PC? Eleksen believes you do, but has taken the concept a step further -- incorporating the SideShow feature into one of its laptop bags.

The company has developed a prototype bag that features a small screen on the outside, as well as a few simple controls. This means that if you need to check out an email that you got earlier in the day, look at a picture or listen to a track on your laptop, you can do it without needing to open your bag.

We checked out the Eleksen SideShow laptop bag (pictured at CES, and although it didn't actually work we were really impressed with the idea. Unfortunately, this is only a prototype that Eleksen is hoping to develop further this year -- there's no word at this stage on UK availability.

The Windows SideShow feature may seem like a gimmick but products like this are going to appear all over the place once Vista is rolled out on to all our laptops. Hopefully, SideShow will live up to its promise and enable us to check some of our data in a much easier way. -AL